i-iv -- Preface -- Contents -- Modality in English: Theoretical, descriptive and typological issues -- The semantics and pragmatics of core modal verbs -- Irrealis, past time reference and modality -- Modal auxiliary constructions, ΤΑΜ and interrogatives -- A pragmatic analysis of the epistemic would construction in English -- Towards a contextual micro-analysis of the non-equivalence of might and could -- The status of emerging modal items -- On two distinct uses of go as a conjoined marker of evaluative modality -- Had better and might as well·. On the margins of modality? -- What you and I want: A functional approach to verb complementation of modal WANT TO -- Between epistemic modality and degree: The case of really -- Stylistic variation and change -- Modality on the move: The English modal auxiliaries 1961-1992 -- Changes in the modals and semi-modals of strong obligation and epistemic necessity in recent British English -- Shall and will in contemporary English: A comparison with past uses -- Pragmatic and sociological constraints on the functions of may in contemporary British English -- Sociolinguistic variation and syntactic models -- The role of epistemic modality in women's talk -- Double modals in the southern United States: Syntactic structure or syntactic structures? -- Modal verbs in Tyneside English: Evidence for (socio)linguistic theory -- Subject index